Illinois lawmakers approved keeping some workers out of unions

Despite Illinois’ reputation as a labor-friendly state, it hasn’t always been smooth sailing for state worker unions.

In early 2013, the General Assembly passed a bill that prohibited workers holding certain job titles from joining a union. Some workers already in unions were removed from them.

“This was done with a Democratic governor and Democratic majorities in both houses,” said Henry Bayer, executive director of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees when the bill passed. “It was a very dangerous precedent in my view and something that was totally unnecessary.”

But Rep. Barbara Flynn Currie, who sponsored the bill, said the state needed to keep managers in its workforce out of unions.

“I do believe workers have a right to participate in collective bargaining, but I also strongly believe the management has the right to manage,” said Currie, D-Chicago. “If you are talking about 99 percent of the workforce being part of a collective bargaining unit, I don’t think you have any managers left to steer the ship of state.”

There is agreement that then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s policies fueled a rush among supervisory- and management-level workers to join unions. They were workers designated “merit compensation” because they were not covered by collective bargaining agreements. However, it had been the policy of previous governors to grant the same raises and other benefits to those workers that were agreed to in union contracts.

However, Blagojevich froze the salaries of merit compensation workers. Moreover, they had to resume payment of 4 percent of their salaries toward their state pensions. An AFSCME contract under then-Gov. Jim Edgar had the state assume those payments in lieu of a pay raise.

Under Blagojevich, union workers again picked up those pension payments, but they also got a raise to offset the expense. The merit compensation people did not.

“You talk about handing you an issue on a platter,” Bayer said. “We used to tell him, ‘You’re the best organizer we ever had.’ ”

Hundreds of state workers petitioned the Illinois Labor Relations Board to be allowed to join unions. That would prompt a hearing on whether they were supervisors, but many did join.

“My recollection is that, at the point I introduced the bill, about 96 percent of the state workforce was part of a collective bargaining unit,” Currie said. “That is a pretty stunning number.”

Moreover, Currie said, petitions were pending that would have sent that number to 99 percent.

The Department of Central Management Services said the percentages applied to workers under the governor’s control, not all of state government.

Currie said she was convinced many of the people joining held supervisory positions and should not be in a union.

“The effect was that you had some workplaces where there was nobody in charge because everybody was a member of a union,” she said.

The bill gave the governor the right to designate more than 3,500 jobs as ineligible for union membership if they met certain criteria, such as having “significant and independent discretionary authority.” It also gave the governor authority to challenge the membership of 1,900 people who had already been allowed to join unions.

“It gave the governor the opportunity to go before the labor relations board and say, ‘Look, a mistake was made; this position is actually a policymaking position,’ ” Currie said.

Bayer is concerned that it could set precedent for anti-labor legislation.

“It’s not unlike what they did in Wisconsin,” he said. “They could come in next year and say they are going to take away collective bargaining rights for, you name it.”